The risk adjustment mechanisms are probably the single most important component to any managed competition health care system. The Dutch Ministry of Health realized that it is the Achilles heel of a regulated private health insurance system. Risk adjusters force insurers to compete on quality instead of by simply trying to avoid signing up/dropping sicker [...]

Nate Silver believes progressives should trade the public option away, but what he wants in return is far more useless and an even tougher political battle. And the public option, as currently constructed, would only enroll 3-4 million people, according to the CBO. It’s a relatively minor provision, and one that, in its present, already-compromised [...]

It appears the crack team of reporters at the Washington Post don’t know how to read. They make the ridiculous claim that the public option would not be able to keep down costs: The decision to permit states to opt out of the public plan is partly to blame for the Reid proposal’s lack of [...]

The CBO and CMS have both been pointing to the lack of sufficient risk adjustment mechanisms in the new exchange, and how that would hurt the public option. The new CBO analysis of the House bill demonstrates how weak the CBO believes the new risk adjustment mechanism will be: Risk adjustment payments to health insurance [...]